By Sam Aitchison
The Church is Alive!
The increasing speed of technological change over the past 40 years has led to an increase in measurement, data analysis, and metrics. Grocery stores track what we buy, jobs evaluate performance through measurable goals and financial targets, and websites monitor what we click and how long we view content. Much of this isn’t bad — measurement can be helpful in many situations, such as evaluating the effectiveness of a nonprofit or social service. Yet I’ve come to realize over the past few months that the continued proliferation of tracking and analysis in our lives poses a risk to our spiritual journeys.
As I finish my time at Saint Louis University next month, I’m taking a final theology course where we’re reading the works of figures such as St. John of the Cross, Romano Guardini, and Soren Kierkegaard. Each, in different ways, point toward a central feature of Christianity: tension — between good and evil, temporal and eternal, finite and the infinite. We are human beings, yet we are also oriented toward our ultimate end: union with God.
I’m a very type A person. I like being organized, knowing what I’m doing tomorrow and next week and I don’t enjoy ambiguity. But these Catholic authors have challenged me to accept the tensions inherent in the human condition. I know I can be a better version of myself, yet I fall short and sin regularly. I can’t simply “pray harder” and expect immediate transformation. Instead, these thinkers point toward something deeper: surrender. This yielding to the divine is not passivity, but a willingness to be changed. A living relationship with God is not something to optimize but to enter with humility and presence.
I often find myself in a mindset of utility, always working toward an outcome. I’ll think that if I’m more “productive” in prayer, I’ll gain more by becoming better or being more charitable. However, I think God’s telling me something else ― to slow down, stop trying to manage the encounter, and to listen; to sit in silence, to notice a bird flying or a plant rising from the ground in spring. He wants not for me to achieve something, but to receive.
We live in an individualistic culture, particularly in the United States. Many of us are formed to see the world through the lens of productivity, economic utility, efficiency, and personal gain. I’ve realized this spring that this formation has quietly shaped how I see the world, and how I approach my faith.
This semester has challenged me to examine that lens more critically. I’m working to listen to God more than I speak. To contemplate. To ruminate on God and His creation not for any practical benefit but to be in fuller relationship with Him.
The world often treats people and resources as means to an end. Our faith calls us to something different: to behold God and one another not for utility, but with reverence. In this Easter season, instead of seeking to gain something, how we can more fully give ourselves for the greater glory of God?
(Sam Aitchison is a senior at Saint Louis University studying business and theology. He can be reached at samaitchison6@gmail.com.)
